Recent Rambling Poker Forum

This page will list the entries for users who are 'Just Rambling'. Most users are doing this to solicit feedback on their play or opinions on some aspect of poker (or whatever). Come here to find or start a lively discussion (or debate).

January 2007 Ramblings

January 30, 2007, 12PM:
quitting while ahead

ok, im not gonna dwell on this, cuz ive learned my lesson.
yesterday, started in 3/6, down 100, move to 2/4, down another 40. from there, the cards cooperate for the entire afternoon, then against superdonks in the evening back at 3/6, to where i was actually up, 110 on the day. absolute account almost at 800. i was tired, but the game was GREAT, so i stayed, and then, 2 hours of bad cards, i end the day DOWN 80 or something... now, i took a calculated shot at ending the night at like 1000.... but, considering i had turned the day 250 already, i shouldve been content, and just gone to bed when i felt tired. and i was tired. remember this: THERE WILL BE JUST AS JUICY A GAME, WHEN IM IN GOOD, RESTED CONDITION. NEVER FORGET, I NEED A COMBINATION OF BOTH, FOR THE GAME TO BE VERY PROFITABLE.

January 26, 2007, 12AM:
Fuck Online Poker!!!!!

I've officially pulled all my money out of Full-Tilt, TruePoker, Paradise, Party Poker, etc.. In recent sessions, I have noticed an increased trend in bull-shit cards that I rarely, if ever, see in live sessions. I actually counted 45 hands in a row where I was dealt nothing higher than a 7 none of which were paired up. What are the odds on that one???

I'd have to agree with Jesse that my frustration with Full-Tilt and other online gaming sites have come to a crossroads. Rather then continue my patronage in a broken system, I have decided to focus 100% on my live cash games. Fuck online poker!!!

It's too bad because I have generally done well online but have grown intolerant of the online game and all those that play it!!!

January 25, 2007, 2PM:
hi/lo

it seems like, ever since i told alison that 'i cant lose playin hi/lo sessions' ive been losing. wtf!!! try to figure out what is happening. is it really, really, just bad luck? or can i do something even a little different to help my cause?

January 20, 2007, 3AM:
My Account

Added "My Account" section.

When you are logged into your account there will be a "My Account" link in the header. This will allow you to update your location, birthday, email, password and toggle your log from private to public.

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won't mention that he owned me every other hand we played... literally don't think i won a pot with him previous to this in about a two hour span... and i had to re-spike on 7th to 3/4th it instead of split

but... just documenting my horse supremacy over the 2006 wsop horse runner up

The final table is going on but I have no desire to watch. I don't know any of the players and it really isn't that exciting to watch live as you can't see their hole cards. Nor do I watch the shit on TV so..

Talked to a player "Pavel" today from Eastern Europe. I love to talk to these younger "kids" about poker. How long they have been playing? How they got started? What limits and games they play?

Seems like most of them either put $50 on an account or won a freeroll and earned like $10 and ran it up. This Pavel kid won a freeroll for $2, then turned it into $30ish. From there he played super low limit cash games and parlayed a big chunk of it($20) in a multitable tournament and won it for like $500ish. From there he was off to the races. He won a seat for the Poker Stars event and cashed in 10K! Good for him. A college student just playing on the side for fun money and saving it up for retirement. Smart kid.

I rememeber the days when Daryl and I would host games in Noth Hedges(residence hall) at Montana State University. We would earn our beer and party money. We finally found a real poker game at the Cat's Paw and frequently went there to play. Then the "big game" was a 4-8 Limit Hold'em game. Back then poker wan't like it is now and our opportunities to learn and play were only amungst ourselves.

Back to Bahamas the last night was slower than we all thought. The room closed down early. Players had their going away banquet and I assume were pretty worn out after 5 days of action. Many of them were on flights to Australia and Tunica for the other events.

We had a dealer that was fired for stealing. This is a drag. I've known the guy for a few years. Very hard worker, put in a ton of hours and been around the industry for years(25+). He is not allowed back to the Bahamas again and they were pursuing legal action against him as well as debating to notify his current employer in Las Vegas.

The problem with the whole situation stems back to the poor managment of cash and tips. In my opinion if things were done more professionally in regards to securing all tips and monies then it would be less likely or easy for anyone to consider pocketing anything. Also, the managment was not 100% clear with tipping policies. We were told that we were pooling all tips. But what happened was a player in a cash game won a big pot, he tipped X amount for all dealers and then gave him X amount. He at 1st informed the player that they have to pool the tips and could not except it. The player said he already took care of everyone and that this is just for you. This left the door wide open for tempation and justification. I am not saying what he did was right and I'm honestly shocked and upset that he would pocket this at the table in front of cameras, another dealer and a floor person. I think though in our 1st staff meeting the managment could have been crystal clear with all of us saying, NO PERSONAL TIPS can ever be excepted under any circimstances and anyone caught excepting or pocketing any tips for any reason will be severly punished. What they did say was, "we are pooling all dealer tips". They also did not put our policies on paper and distrubute them. So there is a lot of room for discrepency if there is legal action to be taken. I guess I'm unfairly blaming a lot of this on our management team but I feel in situations like this it stems from above. If the room had been really organized, had enough floormen and the Bahamian staff was educated enough to know what to look for the tempation would be eliminated as you can feel the heat of being watched. The cash game area was unorganized with no clear hiarchy set in place nor experienced staff. I mean, if I were a theif, or even thinking about trying to be one, this would have been a perfect opportunity to take advantage of the situation. Like a friend once told me, "You lock things in a safe to keep and honest man honest."

All in all the tournament ran extremely well and cash games could have used a bit of improvment. I have a few suggestions of improvment for the guy running the whole room but think I will keep them to myself. I find that when I do open my mouth most people in these positions take offense to my constructive critisism. Almost like they take it as an insult which ends up just hurting me in the end. Sad it has to be this way but I've lost enough jobs trying to help the team only to be looked at as being "unappreciative" and "complaining".

This day was amuzing. Not much to say for tournament action as I was dealing live the whole time and they are down to 9 players in the main event. My KK laydown kid is out, Jimmy, went out 22nd or something.

So, I learned a bit of Bahamaian dialect today. While we were waiting to push there was myself, another american and about 6 of them sitting around chatting. They are really good natured people. Love to talk and joke around and take their time with things. Most Americans find this super annoying as this naturally slows down all service jobs and we are used to everything being lighting fast and catered to like children, that aside. So we are siting around and I can't understand a fucking word as they go on. I finally just ask them what the hell they are talking about cuz it seems so interesting. One gal tells me how they went to this club and people were "juicen" on the dance floor and her "bungi" was all up on his.. and this gals big "crabby" was hangin out her...
So I was lost and for the next 30 minutes I got Bamamian slang lesson and they just loved it. I learned that "juicen - to juice" means to fuck and was explained this as "when you are all up in there it is all juicy ya no man". "Crabby" is the pussy, and the "Bungi" is a black womans big ass booty. This gal then proceeds to act as if she was in a club, stood up and shook her shit (really well by the way) exclaiming, "ya no, shakin da bungi all up on ya.." It was time to push so lesson 101 was over.

This night was intersting as I was dealing the $50-100 no limit game. These moneys where throwing around money like it didn't matter. One kid blows off 40K in a hand on a 2K pot. Pre it was like 7 ways for $300, flop is 235, and guy bets out 2K, the kid raises to 10K and gets called. The turn is an Ace and guy leads out 12k and gets called, the river is a blank and the guy moves all in for 20ishK and gets auto called. Caller has 44 for a st8 and bettor has 46 for nut str8. What a donk play, board is 235 A X, best he could do is chop.
So anyways, this guy that looses has 15K left and wants to prop bet it. He is begging anyone to coin flip for the 15K or do red and black on the flop for it. No one will take his bet. So he finally offers his 15K for 14.5K Now everyone is all excited, they have a $500 "edge" and all joked about how having an edge you have to take the bet. A few of them wanted to chop the bet up against him but could not agree. Finally this young kid on the rail threw out 15K in chips and said he would take the bet. The next hand I was held up and they determined who had which color. Neither wanted to pick so another player assinged them their colors and both players agreed. Flop was all red and the guy that lost the big pot now lost the rest of his stack, got up and said good nite. The kid on the rail that won, sat down with 15 large and proceeded to play with his newly aquired chips the rest of the night... maniacs.

Didn't get to deal tourney today, they gave me a day off since I have been a working bitch.

They will play down to 16 tonight. The talented kid that layed down KK is still alive and kicking. I'll have to get his name and chip count if he makes it.

They have this "Battleship Poker Tourament" going on. It is pretty interesting. It is a heads up match tournament of about 128 players single elimination. They set up 20 or so laptops facing eachother. They have player A stand across player B for their match. They log onto their Poker Stars accounts and play face to face but via internet. This is cool because everyone online can watch and they also project a spectators table view onto the main screen for the whole poker room to watch as well. The only problem is, heads up you rarely see showdowns so it can get to be a bit boring to watch as you don't see their holecards.

As the Main Event keeps breaking down more and more cash games are being spread and the room is getting packed. There are second chance tournaments daily and today's was 1K buy in with about 190ish players. I heard one guy went broke when registration was still open and bought back in under another name. He lasted about an hour before he was was moved and recognized by his old table as being already busted. The floorman was forced to disqualify him from the event with no refund of his second buy in. I talked to the floorman a bit ago and he said the guy had a "final table stack" of about 40K in chips already! (they only started with 3k!)

What a jackass, you don't think 1 of the 9 people at your original table will be around and see you still? At least put on a hat, sunglasses and change your shirt.

I got to deal from start of the day to the end when 123 remain after more than 300 were slaughtered, pretty amazing to think so many players would go broke.

This day you could really see the change in the caliber of player. After not dealing for almost 2 years I could really see the difference in styles. It seems to be that the I find 4 "types" of players that make it this far. There are the weak passives, ultra tight aggressives, tricky aggressives and then the super solid tricky aggressives.

The weak passives are easy to spot. They do shit like not play a hand for 4 rounds then limp in the cutoff 1st in the pot. Then when the board comes A49 and it is checked to them they check, usually checking it down and losing to the BB with a hand like 58 for a pair when their KQs doesn't improve. I think the way these monkeys survive is when they do get a monster hand they end up reluctantly calling aggressive players and doubling up. I saw this one guy raise, get re-raised and debate about folding his JJ when 75% of his chips where in the pot.

The ultra tight aggressives are really annoying to watch play and I pray that I never play like this(although I think I am guilty of this from time to time). These guys sit on their stacks just like the weak passives but when they do get a hand they raise or re-raise with them. Their major weakness is overbetting hands getting their opponensts to fold and being so transparent that they can't get action and are easy to trap. They also can't acumulate a large stack relying only on their cards. I watched a very talented player bust one of these guys. The tight one had 99 and the talented one had KJ. The KJ had raised in late position to attack the blinds and the tight 99 went all in on the button. The talented one had a huge stack that would not be dented by this guy, called and busted him. When the 99 tight left he told another "maniac" that he called because he knew it was a coin toss, that he was 99% certain this guy had a pair 2-Ts. He stated, "If this guy had AK, AQ, KQ he would have folded or just called, if he had QQ, KK or AA, he would have made a very small raise and not gone all in. Very true.

The next player type I just admire are the Tricky Aggressives. You never know what the hell they have. A prime example is our friend Layne Flack, but more in control. Capable of anything on anyone at anytime. These guys are fearless and put their tournament lives at risk without a thought. Their obvious upside is the ability to amass chips while downside is.. well, going broke in two hands. An example of this I saw today was this kid who re-raised preflop with Q8, got called by the original raiser, flopped an 8, turned a Queen and got the pocked 7s to pay him off thinking he had AK. Two hands later this same player that had Q8, re-raised an UTG pre raiser with KK, the UTG player made a moderate re-raise and the Q8 guy with KK layed it down face up! The UTG guy showed AA and the whole table was shocked. I clearly thought this guy that had re-raised with Q8 was not capable or thoughful enough to lay down KK, my impression was that he was nutszo.

Our last profile is the super solid tricky aggressives. These guys you rarely see and I wish one day I could possess these skills. These guys are the ones who are extremely talented. They are constantly mixing up their plays, limping on the button with trach or with monsters, raising UTG with 98s or AA. Check raising the flop with either top set of nothing, a draw, top pair, who knows. Generaly when I deal I have an idea what players have but with these guys I am lost.

One major thing happened today while dealing that was shocking and sad. A player moves all in from UTG, everyone folds to the 10 seat whos vision is blocked of the 3 seats all in move although it had been announced. The 10 seat, on the button, goes all in for less than the 3 seat, the big and small blind folds. The three seat rolls over A7 and as I turn to see the 10 seats hand he releases it towards the muck face down after showing it to half that side of the table excaiming, "they didn't call?"
(he was shoced because the BB and SB had huge stacks and constantly called all in players) He cards ended up sliding from his hands onto my muck pile and rested visiably distinguishable from the rest. The table went nuts. First, the all in player declared his hand dead and demanded I give him the pot. Another player told me to get his cards out of the muck since we all could see which ones they were, stating that an all in player can not fold even if he wants to for reasons of collusion.(which is partially true). The all in mucker in seat 10 physically tried to grab them from the muck and I stopped him. A player in the middle seat started fuming about the possibitity of his hand being retrieved from the muck, that these floor people are the worst ever( I agree a bit with him here that they are morons and unprofessional but..)
Generally no matter what happens in a game I can fix and solve the problem. Rarely do I call the floor over, unless the players do not like my correction and contest it, in which case I make them call the floor and usually am sided with.

In this case I was not about to make this decision. I can't decide to kill this guys hand and emiminate him from the tourney with less than 200 players left. Then again, how can I take his cards out of the muck and fuck the other all in player out of a hand that is dead. I mean, if I was the other all in player I would be pissed. So, the floor rolls over and I explain to him the situation. He decides that since his cards where seen by 5 players, that there was no pending action when his cards where mucked, since his vision was blocked of seat 3s all-in and that his cards were cleary retrivable that his hand would be live and not ruled dead.
So I turned this guys AK face up, he only had about 25% of what the other all in player had in chips. The other guy had A rag,(A6 or A7), The asshole fuck head in the middle seat not even in the hand gets all irrate with this ruling.
Declaring that this is wrong, his hand is dead and he wants another decison from the head Tournament Director. This is where this floor man fucks up. He tells me to hold up and goes to get the tournament director, this guy is "just" an assistant. If he was smart and had balls he would have told this player that he is not involved in the hand and that this is his final decision. If he does not like this ruling that he speak with him and the Director on the next break or when he is out of a hand. Instead the assistant gets the Director at the table. As the TD addresses player issues he comes to the table to solve a problem and is adressed 1st by the middle player not in the hand that wishes to see this hand ruled dead. He then listens to my re-explaintion of the situation and does not have a fresh perspective of the situation as the mid player slants it to be a folded hand and I naturaly defend the mucker. The TD rules the hand dead, that it is the player's responsiblity to protect his hand, sorry bye bye.

I don't really know where I stand on this situation. I mean, if this were a cash game, I would have mucked and mixed those cards together and pushed the other guy the pot in a heart beat. Where I am confused is the fact that this guy showed 4 other players his hand, had already called and there was no sustantial action behind him. **Regarding the muck though** This is the true "line" for black white and grey. Under these conditions the tournament director set he is pretty much saying, any foreward motion equals dead hand. If this guy's cards had only gone a few inches foreward but not touched the muck would the TD allow him to grab them again and roll them over? Yes! What if they barely touched the edge of a mucked card? Yes! What if the skimmed over the muck and went to the other side of the table? Yes! What if they went onto the muck, could be distinguished but rested there? NO!?!

Sad situation I don't like to see, one thing is for sure, this player will NEVER EVER do this agian.

This is why I always tell players to NEVER release their cards until they have been awarded the pot.

Day two, group B plays. Very tired as working 16 hour days is a bit rough.

Today seemed like all the pros and the players that directly bought in played. Seems like Stars put all their internet donks in group 1 and pros/buy in players in Day 2 to give them a chance.

The Main event had 937 players. Great turn out. The Donkeymaker, Raymer and Hachem all went broke. Nice to see ;)

The cash games were incredible. Limit Hold'em is all but dead. All games being ran are, "Sit n Go"s NLH and NLH cash games with one PLO game. It is crazy, biggest game is a $50-100 NLH where the average stack is about 25K. The room closes at 4AM, and the players all stick in around 2K and then play showdown, it is very amuzing. It as if no one cares about money around here. What happened to the days where losing more than $2,000 was a big deal?

From a staff note the room was poorly managed yet again. What can a guy do other than sit back and kind of laugh at the situation.

Day1B ended with about 250 players, so we will be going into day 2 with about 490ish players, 240ish from both 1A and 1B.